Specials

Gold Temptation

Belgian Golden Strong Ale • All Grain • 19.54 L

bear2bear

My home brewing in the fall-winter 2013-2014 begins at brewing this simple beer. I have plenty of stocks for dark colored beers, so brewing the light colored ones comes first. As you know, beers in this style are light-colored but highly alcoholic, alomost opposite in characteristics to those in my stock. This one is very easy to brew.

December 8, 2013 at 09:41pm

5.0/5.01 rating

Ingredients (All Grain, 19.54 L)

5.0 kgBelgian Pils

Belgian Pils

Pilsner style malted barley grain.

0.45 kgCandi Sugar Clear

Candi Sugar Clear

Smooth taste, good head retention, sweet aroma and high gravity without being apparent. Use in Belgian and holiday ales. Use clear for tripels, amber for dubbels, and dark is used in brown beer and strong golden ales.

0.90 kgInvert Sugar

Invert Sugar

Increases alcohol. Use in some Belgian or English ales. Made from sucrose & is 5-10% less fermentable than sucrose. Does not contain dextrins.

64 gMt. Hood - 4.0 AA% whole; boiled 90 min

Mt. Hood

Used mainly for aroma and flavor in American and German style ales and lagers. Aroma is mild, pleasant, light, and clean.

1 tspIrish Moss - Boiled for 15 min. (omitted from calculations)

Irish Moss

A dried red-brown marine algae. Fining agent to remove large proteins. Negatively charged polymer attracts positively charged protein-tannin complexes (extracted from grain husks and hops) during the boil. This action is aided by the clumping of proteins in the boiling process. Irish moss settles to the bottom of the brew kettle with spent hops and hot break material at the end of the boil.

Fermentis T-58 Safbrew T-58

Fermentis T-58 Safbrew T-58

Estery, somewhat spicy ale yeast. Solid yeast formation at end of fermentation. Widely used for bottle and cask conditioning. Pitching instructions: Re-hydrate the dry yeast into yeast cream in a stirred vessel prior to pitching. Sprinkle the dry yeast in 10 times its own weight of sterile water or wort at 27C ± 3C. Once the expected weight of dry yeast is reconstituted into cream by this method (this takes about 15 to 30 minutes), maintain a gentle stirring for another 30 minutes. Then pitch the resultant cream into the fermentation vessel. Alternatively, pitch dry yeast directly in the fermentation vessel providing the temperature of the wort is above 20C. Progressively sprinkle the dry yeast into the wort ensuring the yeast covers all the surface of wort available in order to avoid clumps. Leave for 30 minutes and then mix the wort e.g. using aeration.

Notes

1/12 tsp of campden powder was added to each of the mashing water and the sparging water. 1 tsp of gypsum was added to the mashing water. Full 90 min. mashing at low temp. 64-66 C. Fly sparge with FWH, then got 23.94 litters of pre-boil wort. Added 2 litters of cold water to make it 25.94 litters. Full 90 min. boil, with the candy sugar added at 30 min. and the inverted sugar (grucose) added at 60 min. Got 20.5 litters of wort. I slept then, and forgot to measure the original gravity. Brewed on December 9th, 2013.

Fermentables

Total:6.35 kg

Efficiency:72%

Quantity

Proportion

Gravity

Color

Belgian Pils

Belgian Pils

Pilsner style malted barley grain.

5.0 kg

Candi Sugar Clear

Candi Sugar Clear

Smooth taste, good head retention, sweet aroma and high gravity without being apparent. Use in Belgian and holiday ales. Use clear for tripels, amber for dubbels, and dark is used in brown beer and strong golden ales.

0.45 kg

Invert Sugar

Invert Sugar

Increases alcohol. Use in some Belgian or English ales. Made from sucrose & is 5-10% less fermentable than sucrose. Does not contain dextrins.

0.90 kg

Hops

Total:64.0 g

Kettle Gravity:1.060

Quantity

Boiled

Proportion

Bitterness

Utilization

Mt. Hood(4.00%)

Mt. Hood

Used mainly for aroma and flavor in American and German style ales and lagers. Aroma is mild, pleasant, light, and clean.

64 g

90 min

Discussion

bear2bear

Better with bottle conditioning

2014-05-23 9:07pm

Racked to the secondary on 12/31/13, and bottled on 1/13/14. The beer tasted very sweet when it was racked, so that I suspected an insufficient primary fermentation. Now, more than 4 months after being bottled, the excessive sweetness has receded, and the taste has become far more enjoyable. I think the sweetness on my palate comes from the yeast T-58, since the sweetness comes precisely from a pear-like flavor. This beer reminds me of Leffe Blond, but its heavier and dryer. At first I thought this beer was on my failure list, but now I think it is a big success. It has also made me very curious about the yest T-58.